How Do You Respond When Your Beliefs Are Challenged?

How solid are your beliefs? Do you relish an opportunity for your beliefs to get challenged so you can measure your own convictions? Or are you committed to believing what you believe regardless of any circumstance?

Recently, I started adding new bloggers to the editorial team here at Butterfly Maiden. And I immediately fell in love with the concept of sharing diverse voices with my readers. Providing alternative perspectives to this journey of transformation we are all taking makes me happy.

But, I wasn’t prepared to have my own beliefs challenged.

Then again, how does one go about preparing for something like that? The sentence itself implies the need for defense – and defending your beliefs at all costs is NOT an admirable trait in my book.

I’m comfortable with my own beliefs, with my worldview. There probably isn’t much you could say to me to persuade me to see things differently. And yet, if new information is presented to me, I am willing to look at it and consider it. I’ll weigh it against my own experiences and convictions and yes, I might even CHANGE WHAT I BELIEVE.

Do you realize that beliefs are not etched in stone?

What a radical concept, right?

At any given time, we have the right to adjust our current views to reflect the sum total of our experience and wisdom gathering.

I, personally, crave the opportunity to have my beliefs challenged. I’m not talking about a heated argument, more like situations that arise which cause you to pause and deeply contemplate your perspective.

Adding bloggers, with their distinct and individual voices, has given me this opportunity. You see, I know what I believe today. I write and share with you from my perspective. So, what happens when someone I admire and respect, writes an article that doesn’t align with my own personal beliefs?

Ack! Do I censor their work? Do I set up an editorial guideline instructing them what they can or can’t say, to ensure that my own views are perpetuated on my own blog?

I want to.

At least part of me wants to.

But the larger part of me recognizes that as inherently unfair. Who am I to dictate what someone else believes? That is the exact opposite of who I am and everything this blog strives to promote.

I believe it is wrong for me to ask my fellow bloggers to cater to my own beliefs, so I am going to give them free reign to speak with their true and authentic voices.

Which both makes me happy and nervous at the same time.

Because they are going to contradict each other. And they are going to contradict me. And they will even contradict themselves.

(I expect this – and I welcome it. Goodness knows my own perspective changes over time. I’m pretty certain thoughts I shared a year ago have evolved since.)

I hold the vision that respectful, insightful dialogues will ensue out of this potential petri dish of theological debate. I task you, the reader, with having an open-mind and being willing to have your own beliefs challenged.

After all, that is the beauty of fluid beliefs – acknowledging that there is much to learn and to know… that there may be more than one answer to any given question.

Rumi, the 13th century Sufi poet, expressed this beautifully when he said, “The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.”

Beliefs = Video Games?

I believe that life is like playing a video game – Super Mario, even. We’re on this journey to learn, to unlock doors, and move up levels. When you find a key to unlock a door, three more doors appear. And with every level there are MANY hidden surprises to find. Some of them help you on your journey, making a future level easier, and some of them just look cool for your score or your trophies.

With every door, you have access to new levels of information, challenges, and experience.

Then there’s the Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time. When Link leaves his home to go on his quest, he starts out as a little boy who will grow into a man. As the game progresses, he acquires tools, skills, and knowledge that assist him on his journey. At the end of the game, he is not the same character he was at the beginning; his path brought additional wisdom.

If we are unwilling to expand our awareness, to process new information, and accept that our beliefs are fluid and can be changed, our experience is doomed to be dull and stagnant.

As you read the articles on Butterfly Maiden, I challenge you to stay in a state of fluidity – process new concepts, keep what resonates with you, and discard what doesn’t. Be willing, just like Link, to grow… to develop your own convictions and beliefs.

Challenge: Ponder how your beliefs have been formulated. Contemplate your own convictions and whether you are willing to learn and grow. Consider your Truth.

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